Mystery Lady

Just changed my avatar for a couple of weeks or more......this picture was found at the back of a family portrait, I came across it while cleaning the glass.....who is she? what was she doing in my collection of family pictures left to my by my father hidden behind a framed portrait....it was a studio picture and at a guess it was taken in the 1930s at Navana Studios either in London or Birmingham......

Not, I suspect, that it makes any difference to you - but I wholeheartedly approve of you giving the portrait an airing!

When I bought my house I found an old photograph of a formidable-looking lady standing in a local beauty spot and a rent book from the nineteen-thirties hidden under the carpet. The picture is now framed and hangs in my vestibule - it seemed like the right thing to do.

My picture in question has star quality written all over it I have been searching for a name for over ten years! .....the original is a 8x6 head and shoulders on bromide paper with a slight tint it could be Royal Bromesko or its started to fade with age....

Ah, rather like mysteries! I'm guessing you have already identified the person/people in the image this was concealed behind - maybe this records the unrequited love of someone in that picture, and your father acquired the framed photo from one of the individuals in that photo, not knowing the image was even there? Was the back of the frame attached with tape? - If so, did the tape look like it had been replaced at some point? If it wasn't taped or the tape doesn't look as old as the rest of the frame, this might have been applied when whatever originally held the two parts of the frame failed? Do you think there a difference in the presumed dates of the two photographs? That might well indicate when the hidden image was placed behind the one it concealed? I'm guessing that you have contacted the museums and libraries near where the Navana Studios in London or Birmingham you mention were located, to find out if at some point, the photographs they took are stored in their archives?
In Reading, the plates and negatives of at least one of the towns photographers (Walton Adams and his sons) are stored in this manner, so you might be lucky and follow things up if you can get access to their work or whatever records were handed over at the same time?